In this article, I am going to look at where you can sell your content website and end up with the most money in your bank account!

Here is a great article listing 17 website brokers. 

When choosing where you are going to sell your site there are a lot of things to consider but often it comes down to where you believe you are going to end up with the most money. 

5 Considerations Other than Money:

1. Success Rates – What is the chance that your website will sell? Some brokerages share their success rate. For example Empire Flippers 74% and MotionInvest 96.43% all other things considered it is better to go with a broker that has a better chance of selling your site based on their success rate of selling other similar sites.
2. Effort Required – Some places where you can sell your site like Flippa are very labour intensive requiring you to do all the work to list your site and communicate with potential buyers. Many other brokers offer a managed solution where the listing, escrow and transfer is handled by the broker. 
3. Expertise with Your Business Model – Some brokers specialize in SAAS, some in ECommerce while others in Content Sites. Choosing a broker that specializes in your type of business increases the chances they have buyers on their list and the expertise to help ensure a smooth transfer. It is an added bonus when the broker is an experienced operator in your type of business. 
4. Length of Exclusivity – Some brokers will require a 90-day exclusivity which can be very frustrating if your business is not looking like it is going to sell. I recommend working with brokers who are confident they can sell your business and demonstrate that confidence with only a 30-day exclusivity agreement.
5. Willing to Sell Your Sized Business – Depending on the size of your site some brokers will not be interested. For example, Quiet Light Brokerage has had an average deal size of $500k and will only work with businesses of a certain size. Picking a broker that will work with a business of your size is a requirement.   

But in the end the most important consideration for most people is where can you sell your website and keep the most money! 

When it comes to where you can sell your site and keep the most money the 2 things you need to consider are…

1. Sell for the Highest Price
2. Have the lowest commission Structure

Let’s now dig into both of these considerations below…

Sell for the Highest Price:

So where can you go to sell for the highest price? 

Like many other brokers (real estate etc) there is a strong bias for website brokers to say whatever they need to in order to get the listing. They might promise an unrealistically high price only to negotiate it down and you can feel powerless if there is a long exclusivity period where you have no other option for up to 6 months. 

My favorite method to get the HIGHEST possible price is to use a broker that uses a modified Dutch Auction with a very large audience and success rate! This is exactly the structure that MotionInvest uses listing your business at a premium multiple initially so that if there is a strategic buyer that does not want to miss out on a perfectly aligned business they are willing to pay a high premium multiple. However it achieves the 96%+ success rate by dropping the price at set intervals to ensure the site will sell for as much as possible. This creates the ideal scenario for a seller with a high selling price and a high success rate. 

For example, at MotionInvest if a Content Site is likely to sell for 36x monthly profit it will be listed at a higher multiple say ~45x and at set intervals the price will decline until a buyer purchases it. This ensures that if there is a strategic buyer willing to pay a premium price that value is captured by you the seller. 

Lowest Commission:

This is fairly straightforward… the more money you get to keep the better for your bank account! 

There is a surprising amount of work required to run a successful website brokerage and sell quality sites. This includes building an audience of buyers, completing in-depth due diligence, and supporting buyers/sellers with completing transactions. 

The range for success fees go from a high of 20% to a low of 5%.

The table below shows the commission structure for several online brokers. The cells highlighted in Green show the best value for a managed broker based on listing fees. It is important to remember this is just one consideration and the listing price is the other part of the equation. 

Conclusion – Where to Sell to Make the Most Money?

Based on the info above if you are looking to sell your website for the most money look for a website broker that has…

1. High published success rates
2. Requires minimal effort
3. Has expertise selling your type of business
4. A short exclusivity period
5. Will sell your sized business

And most importantly…

• Will sell your business for the highest price and take the lowest commission on that sale

If your goal is to have as high a probability as possible of putting as much money in your bank account from selling your content website then MotionInvest.com is the best option with their Modified Dutch Auction and favorable Commission Structure. 

Want to sell your Amazon FBA Business Crazy Fast??

If you need to sell your FBA business and either need to sell it fast or it is too small to sell via brokers fill in the form below and I can be in touch to review if selling to me/my contacts is an option.

When I was selling my FBA business I learned it took a LOT of time to sell a business!

What Are Your Selling Options:

1. If your business is making over $4k/month average for the last 12 months then contact Coran at TheFBABroker.com (if you can be patient for a sale 1-3 months)
2. If your business is making $2k-$4k/month average for the last 12 months then contact EmpireFlippers.com (if you can be patient for a sale typically 1-3 months)
3. If your situation is any of the following you have fewer options…
   1. Under 12 months old
   2. Does under $2k/month profit
   3. Need to sell fast (regardless of size)

If you meet ANY of the 3 criteria above your options are limited, I have put together a business, systems and funding to help sellers sell their business.

If you are interested in a fast sale please enter the information below…

Sell Your FBA Business Today – Enter Your Details Below…

What Information Will Help With A Fast Sale of Your FBA Business:

Important – If you need to sell fast simply fill in the form above and I will be in touch as quickly as possible and we can review what information is needed. 

• Profit and Loss Template – Fill in the template here (and share with [email protected])
• Monthly Income & Expense Statement (Create Trailing 12 Month Reports)
  1. Login to SellerCentral and go to Reports>Payments
  2. Select Date Range Reports click generate report
  3. Select “Summary” report type and range select “Month”
  4. Select the month you need and click generate
  5. Repeat for every month and download labeling each file appropriately

Use these reports to input to the profit and loss template above.

• Monthly Units Sold Report
  1. Go to Reports > Business Reports and click “Detail Page Sales and Traffic”
  2. Include the last 12 months and change the view to month
  3. Download the CSV
• Supplier/Manufacturer Info – Provide information about the relationship with the manufacturer. Contact, terms, MOQ, volume discount, lead time, landed cost and include an invoice or email to be able to validate COGS.
• Website – If you have a website be sure to include the URL and any traffic and earnings data

Selling your website that is making money is obviously a big decision. You have worked hard to produce valuable content, attract links, monetize it well, stress about Google Updates or commission changes and now you are ready to cash in.

Should you get an SBA loan or any other form of debt to buy your first online business? The math and potential is undeniably attractive! But at what risk?

My strong and unpopular opinion…

I strongly believe buying most online businesses (especially your first) with personally guaranteed debt (SBA or other) you can’t afford to pay back without the business is a VERY BAD idea!  

Despite my strong bias, I will try and present both sides of the borrow, or not question. 

The SBA Loan Dream Being Sold…

In one purchase you can transform $100k of your money (or even an equity partners money) combined with a loan (SBA or other financing) for 90% of the purchase price and have a Million Dollar online business with ~$300k+ in discretionary earnings. 

Incredible right? 

You want out of the 9-5, be your own boss, have financial freedom and be location independent? Great… just one business purchase away… right?

Hack the startup process and live the successful entrepreneur lifestyle immediately all while running a fully remote business. 

Sounds pretty great… in fact, it is a great way to live… as I write this I am at my Cottage during the workweek loving my new 2 days entrepreneurs schedule

No path in life provides a greater ability to engineer your own lifestyle then as an entrepreneur, so I definitely get the desire!

But what are the risks and is it worth it? 

This post will look at the risk vs reward of purchasing an online business (especially your first) with an SBA Loan or any other form of debt.

The Benefit of Buying with Debt

As mentioned above if you can successfully pull it off the results are incredible. Shortcut YEARS of hard work and buy your way with leverage to the entrepreneur lifestyle. 

A fantastic book that looks at buying businesses and then building them is Walker Diebels book Buy then Build. In this book, Walker makes some great arguments in his book for the use of debt. I just finished it and its great… I agree with much of what he says and specifically the application of the margin of safety when using debt to buy a business.

Compared to traditional financial investment alternatives with bonds at incredibly low returns and the stock market typically returning 4%-8% the ability to get 100%+ ROI using debt is attractive. 

So if it works out and the business even stays flat you can achieve full financial freedom at a cost of under $100k! Very incredible. 

Before I dig deeper into the downside there is one scenario when I think adding debt into the equation of an online business acquisition makes sense. If you have…

• successfully run online businesses before
• adding in debt to “juice” the returns
• not risking more than you would be capable of paying back if the business went to zero

Under that very restrictive model I believe it is not fiscally irresponsible to borrow. 

However, I would ask someone in that situation if the juiced returns impact the quality of your life or would needing to pay off the debt impact the quality of your life. If borrowing risks your chosen lifestyle then you are trading financial security for (I hate the word but…) greed? I am not anti-greed and there is nothing wrong with a person that makes that decision as long as they are aware of it. 

So why do I think if the debt you are taking out would risk your family’s financial security it is a terrible idea?

Downside – Margin of Safety when there is a Single Point of Failure

In value investing a popular term is margin of safety. 

The margin of safety is when the market value is significantly below the intrinsic value of a company. 

So what is intrinsic value? In financial analysis this term is used in conjunction with the work of identifying, as nearly as possible, the underlying value of a company and its cash flow per Investopedia

For a high margin low overhead online business with no assets beyond the domain name and some content (ie affiliate site) the intrinsic value includes no “real” assets and only the present value of future earnings (ie the value is set at some multiple on the websites income 3x annual income as an example). 

Many online businesses have a single point of failure that can send the business to ZERO. Some of the common single points of failure for online businesses include…

• Google – Any business dependent on Google Traffic is one update/penalty away from going to zero
• Dropshipping – Paid Traffic Channels can turn unprofitable turning the business negative
• Amazon FBA – Suspension or Amazon mistakes can send the business to zero (at least temporarily)
• Any business with 1 primary monetization source – Amazon Affiliate as an example
• SAAS Business – If tied to a marketplace they don’t have control over (Shopify app etc)

So if the amount of money being borrowed is more than is capable of being repaid then if the business fails you are taking a SIGNIFICANT risk with your family’s financial future for years(decades) to come. 

Thought Experiment on Volatility

Not all online businesses have a single point of failure, but many/most do. 

Let’s estimate the stability of an online business based on both SBA loan defaults and the volatility of online businesses.

• The failure rate for SBA Loans = 17.4% went into default 1/6 out of all SBA loans (NerdWallet)
• The failure rate for online business = Hard to estimate but look at the history of Google Updates at SearchEngineJournal.

I would argue that the volatility of online business is higher than the typical SBA eligible business, but even if not many people are going in with a 20%+ chance at a negative life-changing financial consequence. Granted a <80% at a positive outcome.

Lets use a couple gambling analogys…

1. What would the payout and odds need to be for you to play 1 round of Russian roulette? For many, an SBA loan is significant enough it is financial Russian roulette with decades-long potential consequences if you default.
2. Most SBA loans come with a business that becomes your single means for achieving your financial goals. This lack of diversification coupled with a 20% failure rate is a problem. If you walked into a casino and there was a coinflip game you knew had an 80% chance of heads and 20% chance of tails the optimal strategy would not be to bet 100% every time on heads. Within a handful of bets, you would likely be at zero.

If it is so risky then why is most of the content discussing SBA loans being used to buy online businesses positive?

There is a Strong Bias in the Ecosystem

The majority of the information out there that is pushing the mandate of borrow money and buy an online business is coming from the ecosystem that benefits from the liquidity being injected into it.

I am not immune, I contemplated not posting my strong views as less liquidity could drive down multiples, the value of my businesses and the number of deals done at MotionInvest.com would be negatively impacted. 

For anyone that is selling you the dream make sure to separate out their bias… SBA lender, business broker, accountant, lawyer, seller or investor not on the hook for the personal guarantee all benefit when a deal gets done. If your source of information is someone who benefits from the transaction then do your own research (DYOR always a good principle with money to be able to avoid the worst scams like IncomeStore).

What is the Alternative

Don’t you hate people who point out a problem without a solution, I will try not to be a debby downer.

It sounds like I am saying I am not a believer in this asset class of online businesses if I don’t think they are credit worthy. That is definitely not the case, they provide an unparalleled opportunity for income scale while operating them efficiently fully remote. As an example of what is possible one of my former employees has scaled his commerce business to half a million dollars in monthly sales with reasonable net margins within ~1 year! 

What I am a believer of is finding exposure to this type of business that is a fit for your unique situation. Everyone coming to this asset class has some combination of…

1. Capital
2. Time & Skillset 

Based on where you sit between those 2 factors should dictate where you are prepared to start. If you have limited time and loads of money with the ability to get a manager than looking at larger deals may be the right decision. If you have <$100k but want out of your day job…make a multi-year plan and start off with what you can afford. 

Invest the money you can afford to lose (this might mean starting from zero), grow the crap out of the business then scale up to bigger sites! 

I tried to layout the landscape of the online business buying world on a graph with capital on one axis and time/skills on the other to paint a picture of where people can start their online business search. 

MotionInvest Buying Guide…

https://www.motioninvest.com/buying-websites-for-sale/

Summary & TLDR…

• The dream of buying an online business and immediately achieving the desirable online entrepreneur lifestyle is appealing
• Many online businesses have a single point of failure
• The risk of an online business going to zero is NOT insignificant and CAN happen
• ~20% of SBA loans go into default
• There is bias in the system with most people you interacting with benefiting from a transaction occurring and not being exposed to the risk 
• So what to do? Start with the optimal combination of the resources you have…
  • Capital 
  • Time and Skillset 

I hope this article has been helpful in presenting a different view point than the common view being shared online currently.